The Eagle Nebula on NIF

In one of the eight Science on NIF campaigns, dynamics of molecular clouds such as the Eagle Nebula will be studied in scaled laboratory astrophysics experiments, focusing on new hydrodynamic stabilities of ablation fronts induced by strong directionality of a sustained radiation drive, and on the formation of cometary structures as a model for the famous Eagle Pillars. The NIF Radiation Transport Platform will be adapted to drive a foam target stood off several mm from the halfraum to simulate a molecular cloud illuminated by a distant O-type star, with the drive collimated by an aperture. Pulses of length 20-100 ns generating effective radiation temperatures of 100 eV are being sought. Design of the experiment, theory of the directional radiation instabilities, and supporting astrophysical modeling will be presented.